On Tuesday, 26 April, Singapore’s largest bank and a leading bank in Asia, DBS Bank Ltd launched “Digibank”, a breakthrough “Mobile-only Bank” app designed to make Banking simpler, smarter and faster for its customers. The new “DBS Digibank” app delivers a groundbreaking “Mobile-first” experience and builds on the bank’s continuous efforts to innovate on its digital offerings to enhance the customer experience.

It is India’s first ever Bank that lets you open an e-wallet and a savings bank account without visiting a bank branch, without any paperwork or signatures. Only your Aadhaar no. and biometric is required for authentication. It allows various options to complete the KYC process, including going to select Cafe Coffee Day outlets.

Account-holders will have no minimum balance requirements, earn 7 per cent interest for accounts opened on Digibankand can avail themselves of free cash withdrawals at over 200,000 ATMs nationwide. The account will also provide a physical debit card which can be used across all Visa-enabled online and point-of-sale transactions, as well as overseas.

Customer service via a 24×7 artificial intelligence-driven virtual assistant, which understands natural language and has learning ability, so that it is able to respond in real-time.

The digital bank will also have an intuitive budget optimizer that will help customers do their budgeting, track expenses and analyze purchasing trends.

It also has embedded soft token security, avoiding the need to wait for SMS to arrive.

Digibankwill offer only savings deposits initially, but will expand to include investments and lending in the coming months.

The bank went through an extensive customer immersion programme and applied human-centred design in the development of “DBS Digibank”. Since its soft launch on 14 March, “DBS digibank” has seen more than 200,000 downloads. Any bank’s customer can use this app, but if you don’t have any bank account, then this app is not for you. Since it is a Mobile Banking App, to convert the e-wallet into a Bank account you need Permanent Account Number (PAN), Aadhaar and Biometric authentication for KYC compliance.

The app can be downloaded from an app store (any bank’s customer can use this app, but if you don’t have any bank account, then this app is not for you)

Though the app offers to open a bank account, you need to have an existing banking relationship to load money. Hence, the unbanked population can’t use it

Once installed, open the app to enter details such as name, date of birth, mobile phone number and email ID. To verify these details, you will get a one-time password (OTP) on your phone, which you have to enter to start using the app

To start using the app, you have to login with your user name and password. When you shut the app, it automatically logs you out

You can load the e-wallet using Net banking, credit card or debit card

Customers can view their account balances with a simple wipe on their mobile devices or Apple Watch through the “Peek Balance” function

You have options such as recharge, fund your account, deals, Visa debit card, statements and certificates

The app offers additional services such as tracking expenses and analyzing purchasing trends

Personalized profile and customized quick links – Customers can customize their profiles with a picture or nickname, and can also create shortcuts for their favorite Mobile Banking services

Customers can use a list of recent and favorite payees for faster transactions

Touch ID – Customers can log on to their account securely with their fingerprint

DBS Group Holdings, which has applied to the RBI to start wholly-owned subsidiary operations in the country is targeting a hundredfold boost to its Indian customer base within five years. The bank has so far invested ₹6,500 crore in India. The bank’s chief executive, Piyush Gupta, said it is aiming for 5 million savings accounts in India in the next four to five years through its new Digibank model. The model would help to improve the bank’s cost-to-income ratio as it spends less on manpower and physical infrastructure.

Over the past three-odd years, the bank had invested about $500 million globally for a digital transformation. “DBS Digibank” follows a series of recent initiatives DBS has made in Singapore, such as DBS PayLah!, DBS SMS Banking, and DBS FasTrack. As the pace of digital adoption increases, the bank is sparing no effort to deliver world class digital offerings to its customers. DBShave designed the digital banking services to be innovative and nimble enough to address customer needs, and be able to provide an intuitive and relevant banking experience. It is about leveraging world-class technology to create a first-class customer experience.

Note: DBS Bank Ltd is a Singaporean multinational banking and financial services company. The company was known as The Development Bank of Singapore Limited, before the present name was adopted in July 2003 to reflect its changing role as a regional bank.